I was invited to join the Mind Meld this week at SF Signal, and along with some fine folks, I discourse at length about how speculative fiction changed my life. You can find it here.
In other news, I am mightily pleased with the new Dabir and Asim short story I’ve written for the Kaiju Anthology, and, in fact, am now pleased with both of the other writing projects I’m drafting away upon. Absent any more emergency home improvement projects, I should be back on track soon…
Hulk still wanting to smash story, so Hulk just post link today.
Hulk hear good thing about Lone Wolf adventure books. Many free now, on the web, and not pirate copies. Hulk SMASH pirates.
Hulk write now.
Wow, what a busy week. I was working on my truck until 9:00 Wednesday night and spent part of Thursday morning tinkering some more until I finally gave up and had it towed to the service center. Turns out there was a single bad wire, so, apart from the tow fee things weren’t nearly as bad as I’d feared.
While I’m far behind, I have once again been reminded of how I ought to be thankful of all the things that I take for granted. Say, time to work, or a working truck, or my health.
Today I’m turning attention back to my Dabir and Asim story for Kaiju Rising. I’m delighted that the funding level not only reached the stretch goal that activated my story, but that ALL the stretch goals for the anthology have now been met. I find myself in the odd position of having a story I’m not through writing already planned for an antho.
I believe I’ve mentioned before that writing a character who’s a genius is tricky because I’m not a genius. And right now I’ve written poor Dabir and Asim into a corner and am scratching my head trying to get them out. Dabir, of course, will put it all together quickly over the course of the story, but Howard doesn’t have it yet.
Still, though, the day is good. Wonderful weather here. And I had a delightful accidental phone conversation this morning. Allow me to explain. My phone is a constant irritant. The way that the screen touch buttons are arranged means that if I put the phone to my face while talking I can accidentally mute my phone, activate the speaker, block the mic, or even dial random strings of digits. While finishing a chat with my wife while she drove into work I accidentally chin dialed Lou Anders.
Click to embiggen.
Here at Jones central I spent a long weekend putting my study into complete order. It had been converted into my mother’s convalescent room while she was staying with us for about five months, and between that and all the paperwork from her hospital stay AND the usual clutter, it took a couple of days for me to get it working again.
Now, though, I have everything filed, and I’ve culled my bookshelves. The desk itself is clean of all clutter that doesn’t need something done with it, pronto. Chief among that pile of “stuff to be done with” are the reviews for some excellent products I received for review at GenCon. I sent a number of nifty looking books on to John O’Neill, but beside me are four books that I’m particularly fond of and which I’ll be mentioning both here and at Black Gate in more detail in the coming weeks.
Shh. So I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I’m one of the authors who will be unlocked if funding is met and exceeded in a new Kickstarter. There’s at least three of us mysterious contributors (I won’t tell you the identity of the others) who will be revealed if Kaiju Rising meets its stretch goals.
As it’s an anthology for monster stories, you can darned well bet that I’m drafting a new Dabir and Asim story for the collection. I’m pretty busy with other stories right now, but it was such a great looking assembly that I couldn’t stand to pass up the opportunity.
The project is being published by J.M. Martin, Tim Marquitz and Nick Sharps (the latter two serving double-shift as editors), illustrated by Dan Howard, and will feature stories by Larry Correia, Peter Clines, James Lovegrove, Erin Hoffman, James Maxey, Jaym Gates, Timothy W. Long, Mike MacLean, Natania Barron, Joshua Reynolds, David Annandale, Clint Lee Werner, Jonathan Wood, Gini Koch, Paul Genesse, Edward M. Erdelac, Samuel Sattin, Bonnie Jo Stufflebean, and Peter Rawlik.
The first stretch goal will include additional internal art from Robert Elrod and Chuck Lukacs, and the next three stretch goals are authors. I’m not sure which of those three I am, but I’m hoping you’ll join in the Kickstarter and unlock my story. The full details can be found here.
…I am not at WorldCon 2014 (AKA LoneStarCon 3). In the grand scheme of things it is a tiny disappointment and certainly no tragedy, but I find myself wishing I could be there in San Antonio this weekend with so many of my friends and colleagues meeting readers and interacting with movers and shakers in the industry. I imagine there will be a sizable coterie of Robert E. Howard folks there, and I’d love to raise a glass or two with them. And writer Norman Spinrad is there as well, and he’s someone I’ve always wanted to meet.
I may not be staying up late talking with some of my favorite people, but I can take consolation in the fact that my writing is going very well right now. Things are different for every writer, of course. I’m working on being one of those guys who, when in rough draft phase, dependably gets the same thousands of words done every day. What I’ve found instead is that sometimes, for weeks, the writing crawls. I’ve just come out of one of those phases and now suddenly the narrative is so alive I can barely write fast enough to keep up with it. If I were at a convention that would crash to a halt. Then there’s the insomnia issues I’ve been fighting for the last few weeks. Staying up late for another four nights in a row would probably be a horrible idea.
When I was a kid, the writing life had a magical luster. I felt as though were I to become a published author, I would have “made it.” But beyond the mountains lay more mountains. I’m a middle-aged man now and there are still mountains further off. I had that first published story, and then I wanted a professional published sale and got that, and then a book deal, and on and on. Now, though, the stars have faded from my eyes. Don’t get me wrong, I still love storytelling more than any other job. But I’m far less concerned with fame and glory than earning enough to make a difference for my family.
I learned a while ago that no one method always seems to work for me when it comes to story drafting. I do have some tried and true tactics, but as I’ve told writing students, though the point is to scale the mountain and you’re likely to use the same tools each time, every mountain is a little different. You might use some of the tools less often, or not at all, or lean on some other device that you don’t usually employ.
These days I’ve been experimenting with super-detailed outlines. I found, though, in the writing of both The Bones of the Old Ones and Stalking the Beast that a super-detailed outline didn’t save me completely from having to rework things, hair loss, and general grumpiness. I’ve since hit on a second phase that really seems to be working for my new Hearthstones series. I don’t know if it will always work or if I will use it for every book going forward, but it’s working now, so I thought I’d share it.
I’ve been deep in the trenches writing up a storm. The Hearthstones project is really picking up steam, and if people have as much fun reading it as I’m having writing it I think my audience will be quite satisfied. At this point I’m closing on 50 thousand words, but I’m not sure how long the whole thing will be. (The Bones of the Old Ones is about 115 k.)
It’s my intention to write a longer book, longer books being the vogue in today’s market. Shorter ones seem to be met with some sort of confusion and even disdain, by some. I hope to have a longer book that maintains a high pace, with plenty of mystery and intrigue in amongst the fantasy action and adventure. So far I think I’m doing it.
Part of the reason that I’m not sure of the eventual length is that, despite my detailed outline, the size of the chapters varies once I convert from outline to text. After writing four novels that were right around 90 to 110 thousand words I have a feel for how to do one of those. I sense this will be longer, but I won’t know how long until I hit the halfway point. 150 k? 175k? Hulk not know!
The rest of the day will be devoted to readying for a family reunion, so I’ll sign off. Monday I hope to talk a little about some outlining techniques I’ve been experimenting with. For now, here’s a link to a review by James Reasoner of a book from the Fargo series. As I’ve mentioned before, the allure of western novels always escaped me until I discovered the writing of Ben Haas. Now I’m a fan for life — at least of westerns by Haas. I’ve yet to explore to much further into the genre from him.
Even though I have a vast assortment of old role-playing modules staring down at me from my bookshelves, and even though it’s been a few years since I played, I’m still tempted sometimes to buy more. I can’t help it — I’ve been a gamer since junior high. Ever since I was 12 or so I don’t think I’ve gone more than 2 years at any stretch without playing (or, usually, running) an adventure or campaign, and one of the things I love most is reading through adventure supplements. It’s the storyteller in me, I suppose.
Right now I’m tempted by a pretty nifty setting on Kickstarter titled Primeval Thule. If you’re a sword-and-sorcery fan you should really go take a look. It sounds cool enough that it might be a good read even if you’re not interested in playing a game. As of the moment I’m typing this note, there’s only about 50 hours to pledge money to the project, so I thought I’d help spread the word.